Jolene Lum is currently the Client Development Manager at Nurasa, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Temasek. She has been enthusiastically working in the sustainable food industry for most of her career.

Before Nurasa, Lum was an agritech venture builder and served as Founder and CEO of Urban Tiller, which connects viable urban farming with hyper-local supply chains. 

She also co-built and ran a Singapore insect farming enterprise for sustainable animal feeds and helped to create one of Asia’s first mycelium alternative protein startups.

She received her Bachelor’s with Honours from Yale-NUS College.

Lum is a regular contributor of articles for e27 (you can read his thought leadership articles here).

In this candid interview, she talks about his personal and professional life.

How would you explain what you do to a five-year-old?

Here’s a fun interview where I did something similar.

A more updated response to a five-year-old is that I work on helping new foods and better-for-you-and-the-planet foods become everyone’s next favourite food. Because everybody eats and loves food, it is the most exciting thing that could improve health and better the planet.

To do this, I work towards new ingredients like making your favourite sandwich- but with better components to taste as good as possible but in many ways create better jobs, better lives, and hopefully a better environment.

What has been the biggest highlight/challenge of your career so far?

The biggest highlight and challenge was being a very young founder and CEO, building and running a team older than me and working in an industry’s supply chains that were very entrenched and operated on processes that were hard to change.

The growing and trading of fresh produce we eat daily is not something the average consumer thinks about, but the experience of eating fresh produce is something magical and refreshing when it truly is fresh and grown with care.

The highlight was that I delivered the freshest produce in town and redefined what salads and fresh produce could be for many of my customers (according to them) from a perspective of nutrition. This was possible because we were in touch with local supply chains and gave the customers an option of ultra-fresh, next-day, plastic-free delivery with very little food waste. I had the chance to honour our local farmers, see their work and share their stories.

The challenges abound, running my startup was like getting an accelerated MBA while also having to execute in the real world (raising money, hiring and training a team, customer management, product and R&D management) all at once. I was tired, and when I knew I had to let go, I had little left to give of myself.

Also Read: Always be adventurous and inquisitive: Carl Jones of SAP Concur

But it taught me how to let go and gracefully recognise opportunities for what they were, learn from processes, and become a better person for others, especially my team. I learnt so much about the industry’s potential to fulfil my career, and most of all learnt a lot about myself and how I wish to best add value to the lives of others and future organisations I join.

How do you envision the next five years of your career at Nurasa?

I envision a lot of challenging myself to reflecting on what I want to be when I grow up!

The more I’ve experienced in my brief career, the more I realise that I do not know and am not very good at. My good fortune is that I still have the time to do many things and figure out what it means to me to have my career be a means to serving my community, my team, and whoever I encounter.

I envision the next five years of my career will involve a lot of engaging with stakeholders and learning how best to communicate and connect with others. This is an essential skill to become a better thinker and operator because it places the question of human experience at the centre of how the world should change and why.

I look forward to speaking with fellow entrepreneurs (past, current, future) to connect the dots and continue bringing people together to create robust ecosystems for collaboration and nurturing for failures (aka innovation)!

What are some of your favourite work tools?

I like a gridded notebook. Writing things down with pen and paper helps me focus my thoughts and reframe what I am trying to do and need to get done. I also like a good water bottle.

I try to minimise screen time when I need to think and minimise phone time when I am trying to work. That’s a valuable mind tool.

What’s something about you or your job that would surprise us?

My job is awesome in several ways. Even though I left my startup, I found myself in another ‘startup’ environment at Nurasa, a new subsidiary of Temasek that is trying to accelerate the commercialisation and adoption of sustainable foods.

At Nurasa, one of my most time-intensive projects is building up the new Food Tech Innovation Centre in Singapore. God knows how much I’ve learnt about the construction and interior design industry!

I learnt that I enjoy designing spaces and am glad I got involved in a lot of that design and build process even though it isn’t my main job scope, but it really helped me appreciate the design that is well-informed by the needs of the user. I’ve secretly been offering to help my friends design their new homes or at least inspect construction efforts. Haha.

Do you prefer WFH or WFO, or hybrid?

I appreciate a hybrid set-up where I still spend about 85 per cent of my time having physical facetime with my team. I thrive on human interaction and prefer to drive action face-to-face with someone. I believe that thinking with others in-person also sets you up for more successful WFH or remote arrangements and scenarios when they arise.

What would you tell your younger self?

The first few years of your career will define you, however you let it. It is tempting to seek stability and familiarity with reference to what your friends are doing. This is good for many aspects, from feeling financially secure to being on a safe trajectory.

Also Read: Be hungrier and bolder to explore a variety of industries: Sharina Khan of Thoughtworks

I challenge you, however, to continue to push the boundaries of what it means to be a renaissance person and to reflect on how you can best create value in the world that will create a future that is meaningful, personal, and inclusive

I also challenge you to be kind and generous to your colleagues, superiors and subordinates, to continue creating community and shared values that will make your work impactful not only on a KPI level but also in creating safe spaces for people who might not have known them before.

Be very clear in communication, know what you mean and where it comes from. This will constantly keep your thinking sharp and clear, which is increasingly rare when it is so easy to do what you are told.

Can you describe yourself in three words?

Goofy, energetic, curious.

What are you most likely to be doing if not working?

I’d most likely either be cooking and making new batches of pickles at home or trying to send a problem at the bouldering gym—a lot of the time with friends.

What are you currently reading/listening to/ watching?

I’m reading Emily Wilson’s rendition of The Odyssey, which is so great on many levels. I’m also reading Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner’s Superforecasting, in a crazy time of movement in tech and AI. When there’s time, I watch Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. It’s great.

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